


monster march

by bellafarallones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Centaurs, Demons, Leshens (The Witcher), Love Confessions, M/M, Merpeople, Near Drowning, Sea Monsters, Sirens, Succubi & Incubi, Vampires, Werewolves, werebear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29772957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: I'm writing a bunch of monster-y Indruck shorts.prompt list:https://kueble.tumblr.com/post/643150286556446720/so-ive-heard-a-bit-about-monster-march-or
Relationships: Indrid Cold/Duck Newton
Comments: 19
Kudos: 14





	1. Siren

Duck had been in the water for five hours, and his strength was almost gone. The storm that had tossed him from his ship was long gone, but so was the ship. For the past few hours he’d been pretending he was a corpse, floating face-up and taking one breath after another, trying not to think about sharks. But his muscles were stiff from chill and fatigue, and he was so, so thirsty.

.

..

The corners of his vision were going black. That probably wasn’t good, he thought vaguely. 

..

...

Why was it, again, that he was thirsty? There was water everywhere… 

.

..

…

Solid ground. The burn of lungs expelling phlegm and brine. And then there was clean, cool water at Duck’s lips, and he drank.

The spots in his vision slowly cleared. He was sitting on the sand looking out at the water. And there was a strong, spindly arm wrapped around him, holding him up. The wink of silver - that was what he was drinking out of, a polished silver canteen, inscribed with the letters IC. 

“Holy shit,” said Duck. He took hold of the canteen and kept drinking, long gulps of water until he couldn’t drink any more. 

Duck looked around at his rescuer. A slender man kneeling on the sand next to him, wrapped in a garment as filmy as seafoam that concealed very little. Duck wondered how he didn’t get sunburned. 

“Hello,” said Duck.

The other man gave a little wave and a nervous, tight-lipped smile.

“I’m Duck.”

A nod.

“You don’t talk?”

A shake of the head. The stranger seized up a stick and scratched in the wet sand the letters INDRID. 

“Indrid? That’s your name?”

Another nod, another closed-mouth smile. Duck decided he rather liked that smile. 

“Alright. Well, good to meet you, Indrid. And, uh, thanks for rescuing me.”

Indrid shrugged. Duck looked around: they weren’t on the mainland, that was for sure. And aside from this tiny treeless island, the horizon was bare. 

So, he was only slightly better off than he’d been before. 

“I’m going to try to stand up,” Duck said, more for his own benefit than Indrid’s. But Indrid nodded and hovered solicitously over him, caught Duck by the arm when he stumbled and pulled him the rest of the way to his feet. “Thanks.”

Duck stumbled away across the sand. He made a full lap of the island, just to be absolutely sure that there was nothing here. The island was less than a quarter of a mile across, and the waves lapping at the shore were gentle enough to suggest a ring of barrier reefs. Was Indrid also a castaway? How did he have water?

After Duck made his circuit he found Indrid up on the highest part of the island. He’d constructed a fire out of driftwood, though with what implement he’d produced the spark Duck couldn’t guess. He gestured for Duck to sit down, which he did.

“Well, this is homey,” said Duck into the silence. He looked more closely at his saviour: Indrid’s face had the same strange, smooth beauty of a stone shaped by years of waves, his body the delicate bone structure of a bird. 

After a while Indrid tapped Duck on the shoulder and scratched BE RIGHT BACK into the dirt. “Alright,” Duck replied. He didn’t watch Indrid go, figured he was going to relieve himself, but when Indrid came back he wished he had because he was carrying an armful of fresh fish, dead but still wet. 

“How did you  _ catch  _ those?” Duck asked, staring in amazement. 

Indrid only shrugged. His palms were shiny with sloughed-off scales and pink with blood, and he offered Duck a sharpened stick of driftwood. 

Duck did his best. Indrid didn’t eat but just sat watching Duck, arms wrapped around his knees. It said something about how badly Duck’s day had gone thus far that the fire-charred mystery fish was delicious.

Afterwards Duck drank again from the canteen, which never seemed to get any lighter no matter how much he drank, and tried to make himself comfortable on the sand. “Hey, Indrid? What do you call a fish with no eyes?”

Indrid cocked his head questioningly.

“A fsh!”

Indrid snorted, but he was smiling.

“Why are oysters so hard to find?”

Indrid raised his eyebrows.

“Because they’ve got  _ clam _ ouflage!” Duck slapped his knee. “I know oysters are different from clams, but if I’d said ‘clam’ in the setup it would have wrecked the punchline.”

Indrid nodded. Then, suddenly, he stood up and tugged Duck by the hand down to the shore where there was a broad patch of damp sand for him to trace his words. Duck sounded out the words as they appeared.

“‘How do you know the ocean’s happy to see you?’ I don’t know, how do you?”

Indrid waved enthusiastically.

“Waving? Oh, I get it, because it waves!” Duck laughed for real then, and Indrid did too, and for the first time Duck saw a flash of his teeth. 

Oh. He understood, now, why Indrid had been so tight-lipped. He had the teeth of a shark, triangular, razor-sharp, and far, far too numerous. 

“You’re not human, are you?”

Indrid’s smile vanished, and he shook his head.

“You’re some kind of… sea spirit.”

A nod.

“Well, that’s a relief. I was kinda worried about you being stuck out here all by yourself.”

Indrid shook his head, but he looked more relaxed than he had before.

“But you’re not stuck. Hey, I really appreciate you being here for me, though. Uh. Not that you’re necessarily here  _ for  _ me, you probably just happened to be in the neighborhood - but you did pull me out of the ocean, so that was nice of you. Uh. I’ll stop talking now.”

Indrid smirked. He really was unfairly good-looking.

“Still no talking, huh?”

Indrid shook his head.

“Alright.”

They sat by the fire until the sun set. Over the course of the evening Indrid moved incrementally closer until there were only a few inches between them, and Duck looked over. “Something you want?” he teased.

Indrid wrote in the dirt with a fingertip, in small, almost hesitant cursive script,  _ you’re warm. _

“Yeah? Sharing my body heat is the least I could do after all you’ve done for me today, so cuddle up.”

Indrid was hesitant at first, trailing his cold fingers up Duck’s arm, and Duck leaned into the touch. “C’mon, I don’t bite.”

Indrid smiled his sharp-toothed smile and slung his arms around Duck’s neck, tugging him down to lie on the sun-warmed sand. Duck held him close, and fell asleep breathing in the smell of salt off Indrid’s hair.

\--

Duck woke up to urgent tugging on his arm. “What? What’s happening?”

Indrid pointed. A white sail on the horizon. Duck leapt to his feet. 

“HEY!” he screamed. “CASTAWAY HERE!” He ran down to the shore and stood in the surf, waving his arms. “HELP! HELP!” The ship sailed on, implacable. 

Duck turned and looked back up at Indrid, standing on the crest of the island with his sheet blowing around him. “It’s no use. They’re too far away.”

Indrid looked absolutely miserable. And then he opened his mouth and started to sing.

Duck was almost knocked over by the force of it. How could Indrid’s narrow chest hold the sound of a cathedral choir? He sang with as many voices as there were fish in a glimmering school, he sang  _ come closer,  _ and Duck was powerless against it, stumbled up the beach and fell to his knees at Indrid’s feet, clutching at him.  _ Closer,  _ Indrid sang.  _ Haul on your oars, tilt your sails, and come closer.  _

Duck couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t stop listening long enough to take a breath until finally Indrid paused, and then Duck sucked in enough air to start begging. “Please,” he said breathlessly, “please -”

“Please  _ what?”  _ said Indrid, sounding frustrated.

“I want - I want  _ you.”  _ He wanted to listen to that voice forever, wanted to kiss him and lie with his head against Indrid’s chest to hear his heart and the lungs that produced that song. 

“No, you don’t,” said Indrid scornfully. “I’m off-putting and too skinny. My voice just tricks you into thinking you do.” And then he broke back into song, beckoning the far-off ship. And slowly, surely, the sails turned. 

“You’re a siren,” Duck said. 

Indrid nodded.

He’d never heard of a solitary siren before. “Why didn’t you speak until just now?”

“Because I didn’t want to accidentally thrall you.”

“Oh. That’s… very considerate of you.”

Indrid shook his head. “You are a good man, Duck Newton.” He knelt as well, then, putting himself on Duck’s level, and cupped Duck’s face in his hands. “Thank you for allowing me to share a few moments of your time.”

“Indrid,” Duck said. He wanted to say  _ come with me,  _ wanted to say  _ take me with you.  _

But then Indrid was pulling away. “They will come for you,” he said. “You will be saved. But I cannot be here when they arrive.” And then Indrid leapt into the surf and was gone. The sun beat down unchanged; the waves erased his footprints from the sand. 

With the most beautiful song he’d ever heard still ringing in his ears, Duck got slowly to his feet and stood waiting for salvation. 


	2. Vampire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i guess in this one amnesty lodge is in a city and has many floors

“So we met a bat that turned into a guy,” said Aubrey when she, Duck, and Ned had returned from preventing the death of Leo Tarkesian. 

“What did he look like?” said Mama. 

“Skinny. White hair. Big red glasses.”

“That’d be Indrid,” said Mama. “I suppose you were going to meet him sooner or later.”

“But Indrid hasn’t left his room in  _ weeks, _ ” said Dani.

“Not by the door he hasn’t,” Barclay pointed out. “He’s got a window up there.”

“So what’s his deal?” said Aubrey.

Mama gestured at the stairs with a mug. “May as well go ask him yourself. His room’s on the top floor, can’t miss it.”

And so they trouped up the stairs. Ned complained the most about the four flights, and stopped on the landing with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “If I could turn into a bat and fly out the window I wouldn’t climb all these stairs either.”

The door opened and there, leaning against the frame, was the man they’d seen earlier. Ned stuck out his hand for a handshake. “I’m -”

Indrid finished his sentence without taking his hand. “Ned ‘Friendly’ Chicane? Yes, I know who all of you are.” Then he turned around and went back into his room, leaving the door open. Aubrey shrugged to Duck and Ned and followed. 

The curtains were drawn in Indrid’s room, but the soft light that came through was enough to see that the room was a mess. The furniture was a hodgepodge of different styles: a chair built wide to accommodate a woman in a hoop skirt, a sleek 1970s-modern coffee table. The desk was covered in drifts of paper and crumpled pages spilled out of the wastebasket onto the floor. There was no bed. 

Aubrey started. “So what’s your -” 

“-deal? I’m sorry, conversation is difficult for me; I’m always going to be just a little bit… ahead.” Then he turned to look at the three of them again. He’d seized a pencil off the desk and was pointing it at them. “You know what’s an excellent invention? Pencils. I used to draw on a slate with chalk and then with a quill-pen and that got ink  _ everywhere.  _ Pencils are the beauty of the modern world. That’s my deal.”

“Also seeing the future?” said Duck.

Indrid nodded. “Also that.”

Aubrey took a deep breath. “Can we borrow your glasses?”

Indrid’s hands flew to his face. “You want to borrow… my glasses?”

“Lemme be straight with you.” Aubrey leveled her hands. “There’s this giant cat in Silvain who will give us cool stuff like Narf blasters if we bring him specific things, and one of the things this hunt is a seer’s spectacles.”

“Oh,” said Indrid. “Here. Take them.” He removed the glasses from his face, revealing that the eyes beneath were just as red as the lenses, and held them out to Aubrey.

With his eyes revealed, they could see them glaze over as the future hit him. “The funicular train that connects topside and -”

\--

Duck couldn’t sleep. Round red lenses loomed like the moon over his mental horizon, and the unblinking red eyes beneath them. The hour was too late for any reasonable person, but what was the night to a vampire?

So he crawled out of bed and forced himself up the stairs to the room at the top of the house. The door opened when he reached the final landing, out-of-breath from climbing. Indrid’s eyes were covered again.

“The glasses,” Duck said.

Indrid reached up to touch them. “Yes. I keep spares.” He welcomed Duck into the room with a gesture. “Tell me why you’re here, Duck,” he said, smug because he already knew.

Duck stood with his back to the door, Indrid more a silhouette against the window than a filled-in shape. “I… couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Well, then.” Indrid reached behind Duck to lock the door and stayed there, right in front of him. “Here I am. Satisfy your curiosity.”

Duck smelled copper and wondered how long it’d been since Indrid had fed and what sort of blood it was, human or animal. Then he kissed him. 

He had thought it’d be weird, like kissing a corpse, but a corpse wouldn’t be this responsive, wouldn’t make pleased little noises into his mouth. Indrid’s face warmed by proximity to living flesh. Duck’s tongue brushed razor-sharp teeth and he groaned.

Indrid seized Duck’s hair and yanked his head back to kiss a line down his jaw and onto his neck. “Will you let me bite you, Duck Newton?”

Duck licked his lips. He’d thought that was a given. “Does it hurt?”

“Not unbearably.”

“Then yes.”

Indrid hummed happily for a moment and then pressed his lips once again low on Duck’s neck. His teeth were too sharp to hurt as they sliced through the thin skin, and he soothed the bite at once with his tongue. “ _ Oh _ ,” he murmured. “Yes. You’re very good for me, aren’t you, Duck? Perfect human.” Duck’s head lit up in fireworks from the praise. 

“Please,” Duck groaned. “Indrid.”

“Please what, sweet human?” Indrid pulled back. There was blood running in rivulets down his chin, which he caught and licked off his fingers. “Let me finish, and then I will satisfy you, I swear it.”

“Yeah, alright, sounds good,” said Duck, and Indrid’s mouth was back at his feverish neck again. After a moment he felt lightheaded and struggled weakly beneath Indrid’s iron grip. 

“Don’t worry,” said Indrid. “I won’t take too much. You’re not as much fun when you’re unconscious, hm?”

He was close enough to passing out that everything was a little hazy, a little more intense, and he felt it like a jolt of electricity when Indrid’s palm skated over his chest. “Shh,” said Indrid. “You’ve been so good to me, I’m just going to make you feel good in return.” He steered Duck over to the couch and eased him down. “Can I get you anything to eat? Water?”

“No,” said Duck. “Wanna fuck you.”

“Oh?” Indrid straddled Duck’s lap with his narrow hips and kissed him, on the tender spot on his neck and then again on the lips. “You’re gonna fuck me, huh? Gonna bend me over and have your way with me?” Duck could only moan. “No, my dear, I think I’m going to be the one doing the fucking between us. For tonight, at least.” Indrid slithered down onto the ground, knelt and spread Duck’s thighs. “Let me use my mouth?” He opened his mouth to reveal razor-sharp fangs. “I have had these teeth a very long time, and I promise I know how to be careful with them.”

The thought of Indrid’s fangs so close to sensitive regions of his anatomy was somewhat imperiling, but he wanted those lips and that tongue. “Yes.”

\--

The first time was nothing. Duck was a scientific type, a naturalist; he’d fuck a vampire just to find out what it was like, to see how a cock could swell without a pulse and how breathless moans could work if you truly had no breath. 

Unluckily for him, Indrid was not a naturalist, and he had no such intellectual excuse the next night for putting down his pencil and staring out at the moon and thinking about Duck. He imagined descending the stairs - normally he left this room only by the window - and knocking on the door of the room Duck slept in, or just turning the knob and going in. 

And Silvain was merciful that night, because the futures unfolded before him and he could see that Duck was not asleep, Duck would not mock him for wanting. 

Indrid ran a hand through his hair, hoping it was somewhat smooth. Then he flung open his own door and walked marionette-like down the stairs. The door to Duck’s room was unlocked, but he knocked anyway.

It took several seconds for Duck to open the door. Indrid couldn’t imagine how anyone could function without knowing what was coming, to have to react to surprises. And when Duck opened the door, his face was indeed surprised.

“Oh, uh, hey Indrid,” he said. “Are you… hungry?” The last part Indrid said simultaneously.

“No. Sorry for talking over you. I. Uh.” Indrid arranged his face into what he hoped was a pleasant smile. What kinds of things did people say to each other when they couldn’t be honest? He didn’t know much, but he did know he couldn’t say the truth, which was  _ I want to lie forever in the warmth between your thighs. I want you to stick your fingers in my mouth and make a mess of me and trust me not to hurt you.  _ “How are you this evening?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Would you like to… come in?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Duck stood aside to let him in. Indrid could tell from the spinning futures that Duck was at a loss for words, and he didn’t want to make this situation more awkward than it needed to be.

Indrid summoned his courage. “Can I kiss you?” 

Duck breathed out, sounded relieved. “Yes,” he said.

What a world they lived in, where sexual desire was easy-to-understand in comparison to everything else. Kissing Duck was like coming in from the cold into a warm house, and damn Indrid’s treacherous lips and tongue for singing their joy at it, damn a million years of evolution urging  _ yes, get closer.  _

“At least I have a real bed,” said Duck, and pressed Indrid down onto it. Indrid knew already that they weren’t going to do more than make out, and so he paced himself, running his hands down Duck’s back without thrusting his hips up, allowing Duck to hold him in place by the hair and kiss him as he saw fit. Duck made a little happy noise when Indrid touched his hair in return. Strange, how different bodies liked the same things.

“I don’t want to squish you,” said Duck.

“You won’t,” said Indrid, and tugged a little on Duck’s hips. Then Duck was resting his full weight on Indrid’s body. He pressed his face for a moment into the crease of Indrid’s neck and then went back to kissing him, more lazily now, and then he pulled away to yawn. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s… cool,” said Indrid. Presumably if Duck wanted him to leave he would get up off him. So he kept stroking Duck’s shoulders, enjoying the pressure of him. 

If nothing else, immortality teaches you not to get bored easily, and so Indrid did not get bored, staring at the ceiling of Duck’s room and feeling the in-out of his chest. By the time the vision of Duck being asleep came to him it was already too late.

“Duck?” he said softly. No response. Fuck. The futures did not look good. Extricating himself without waking Duck was not a certain thing, and even if he managed it, Duck would likely be either chilly towards him or embarrassed the next time they saw each other. Indrid was stuck here until morning. He could just barely reach the lamp on the bedside table to turn it off, which he did. 

Vampires, as a rule, did not sleep. It was why Indrid didn’t have a bed in his room; he spent the night doing the same kinds of things he did during the day. This did not, however, mean they  _ couldn’t  _ sleep, and Indrid, centuries out-of-practice in a dark room on a soft bed, drifted off without knowing quite what was happening. 

In dreams, Indrid’s skin was warm, and prickled with the weight of his jewelry. There was a gold necklace around his neck, several of them, bangles on his wrists and rings on his fingers. Other than that his chest was bare, and his arms were bound behind his back. 

It was a gorgeous day, and he looked out over the bog, pools of water spotted with patches of grass. In real life he’d known what was coming, had known it was coming for a long time, had known it was the price to pay for the life he had led. Only now was it a surprise when a blade pierced his belly, slicing him open from his groin to his sternum. And then he was falling forward into the bog, and black water filled his nose and mouth and the space where his intestines had been. 

Indrid woke up biting back a scream. He lay there for a moment forcing oxygen in and out of his lungs, needing to remind himself that he could, that his chest was not packed full of mud and the weight pressing down on him was a warm, softly snoring body.

Duck looked so peaceful. Indrid reached out to stroke his hair, and the vampire’s breathing evened out, and then, finally, stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [those ancient celts and sacrificing their kings and throwing them into the bog, huh?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Croghan_Man)


	3. Werewolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this one they're already dating but haven't been for very long

The sun had set, and the moon had just risen above the pines, casting the Eastwood Campground and RV Park in a pale light. Duck was standing on the doorstep of the Winnebago with a carton of eggnog in his hand: he’d gone to the grocery store after work and run into Indrid there, and they’d gotten to talking, and somehow during checkout the eggnog had ended up in Duck’s bag, and he hadn’t discovered it until he’d gotten home, and, well, now here he was.

“Who is it?” called a voice.

“It’s Duck! Can I come in?” 

“Very well.” The door opened, revealing what looked like a bipedal, silver-furred wolfhound. Indrid was tall and slender as a human, and he made for a charmingly scruffy werewolf. “Come in, then.”

Duck immediately forgot what he was going to say. He’d never seen Indrid in wolf form before, hadn’t even known tonight was the full moon, though he probably should have, given that he’d just watched Indrid buy about ten pounds of raw meat. 

Oh, that was it. Duck held out the eggnog. “It got put in my bag by mistake, so I thought I’d just bring it over.” 

“Thanks,” said Indrid. When the eggnog was safely in the fridge, he turned back around and put one hand on Duck’s shoulder, waited for Duck’s nod, and then embraced him, unbearably gently. Duck hugged him back, found that even with fur Indrid still smelled like Indrid, like ink and fruity shampoo. “ _ Fuck  _ you smell good,” Indrid murmured. “Sorry, that was a weird thing to say.”

“I don’t mind.”

Indrid pulled away. “You should probably leave.”

“Do you want me to?”

Indrid sighed. “No. I’d really like to cuddle, actually, if you’d be alright with that.”

Indrid didn’t really like to talk about what the full moon was like for him, and Duck had almost been worried Indrid would say he wanted to eat him, or something. Cuddling, though… Indrid didn’t seem interested in that kind of thing, normally, and if he was in the mood now, Duck certainly wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity. “Couch or bed?”

“Bed.” Indrid gently lacing his clawed fingers between Duck’s and led him into the bedroom. “Can I lie on top of you?”

“Yes,” said Duck, and got down on the bed and held his arms out. And then Indrid curled around him, nose pressed into his neck, like he wanted to press as much of their bodies together as he could. Gingerly, Duck started petting him: his fur was wiry, undeniably pleasant to run his fingers through. And then he heard a  _ thump, thump  _ against the wall and realized that Indrid’s tail had started wagging. “I didn’t know how it was possible, but I think you might be even cuter like this than you always are,” Duck teased. 

Indrid laughed and licked at Duck’s neck with a warm pink tongue. Duck’s breath caught in his chest. Indrid was heavy on top of him, could probably hold him down like it was nothing, and it sent a spike of heat through Duck’s belly. “Do that again.”

Kissing was messy, Indrid’s jaw was sort of the wrong shape for it, but Duck never wanted to stop, his skin was tingling where Indrid’s tongue had been. Indrid whimpered when Duck tugged gently on his fur, and his tail beat faster against the wall. “I've never done this in this body before,” Indrid admitted.

“Yeah? What’s it like?”

“So good _. _ Everything's so much more intense, I can smell you and hear every little noise you make so much more acutely and- and Duck, I just want to make you happy and keep you safe.”

“You do,” said Duck, and kissed him some more. “And I think I’m pretty safe with a werewolf looking after me.”

“Gonna make you smell like me,” Indrid mumbled. “So everyone knows you’re mine; I love you, I’m -”

Duck froze. Indrid had never said he loved him. Always kept things casual, so much so that Duck half-wondered if he might wake up one day and Indrid would be gone, his parking spot at the campground empty, as if he’d never been there at all. 

Indrid must have felt him tense up, because he was pulling away again, apologizing. “I’m sorry, I’ll shut up, forget I said anything.”

Duck considered his tactics carefully. Maybe Indrid’s wolf-brain said things his human-brain didn’t mean. He held out his arms again, and Indrid settled gratefully back on his chest. “Indrid?”

“Yeah?”

“What does the full moon actually do to you? Beyond, y’know, the obvious?”

“I’m mostly colorblind like this, which is frustrating. But my other senses are improved, and I’m quite a bit stronger.”

“Mentally, though?”

“Well, the improved senses affect how I experience the world. And I’m more likely to say things I normally wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Indrid made a little unhappy noise, and spoke in a very small voice. “Things I normally keep myself from saying because I don’t want to be weird. Don’t want to scare you off.”

“You never told me you loved me because you thought I’d find it  _ weird?” _

“Well, yeah. It’s not like you’d be as serious about me, I’m a loser.”

He said it with such simple confidence that Duck’s heart shattered into a million pieces. “What? You’re not a loser. And I’m so serious about you, Indrid, I’ve been worried you might pick up and leave at any moment.”

Indrid’s claws dug into Duck’s side through his shirt, not enough to hurt but enough to feel. “No. Never. I want you always, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Duck took Indrid’s canine face in his hands, looked into his eyes. “I love you.”

Indrid let out a little squeak. “You - you do?”

“Hell yeah I do. And you don’t have to worry about scaring me off, either; I think it’s hot as hell that you’re a werewolf and you can tell me I’m yours all you want because it’s true.”

“Really? You mean that?”

“When have I ever been able to tell a lie?”

Indrid started laughing, delighted, and licked at Duck’s face until he was laughing too. “I do love you,” Indrid said. “And now you’re never getting rid of me.”

Grinning, Duck scritched behind Indrid’s ear until his eyes rolled back in his head with pleasure. “Nope. Just me and my hot werewolf, forever.”


	4. Demon

“Shit!” Indrid leapt to his feet. In three minutes and twelve seconds, Duck Newton, Aubrey Little, and Edmund Chicane would knock on the door. 

Indrid started hauling dirty dishes to the sink, one hand on the handles of three mugs, and then realized that looking like a slob was far from the worst impression he could make. He ripped down the  _ Duck Newton, Demon Destroyer® _ calendar from the wall beside the fridge and swept an army of action figures off a shelf and into a drawer. He seized the Pine Guard throw pillow from the couch, threw it into his bedroom, and slammed the door behind it. Then, breathing hard, he took one last look around the Winnebago for any additional evidence of his fanboy crush. 

Yeah. He’d bought the calendar (twelve months of Duck Newton glamour shots); and the action figures (Ned and Aubrey’s too, but Duck’s was the only one he owned every clothing variant of and even tracked down the rare red misprint off Ebay). It - he was fine. Duck Newton was attractive, and Indrid needed a hobby to keep him sane, and he was doing it to support the Pine Guard, really, buying their merchandise. It was fine. 

In any case, when Indrid opened the door, he’d arranged his face into a sufficiently enigmatic smile. “Can I get you all anything to drink, or eat, or…”

“Oh, god no,” said Ned.

“No thanks,” said Duck.

“I haven‘t entertained guests in quite some time, so I apologize that I don‘t have more to offer,” Indrid continued, and then immediately cringed. Good going, let them know right away just what a loser you are. “Look, I have a pretty good idea of what you’re here for, but how about you tell me anyway?”

“We’ve been hunting this demon,” said Duck. 

“That is what you do,” Indrid murmured. He’d helped them with demons a few times before, though this was the first time they’d come to his home to ask him about it. 

“And it’s been popping up, like, all over the place,” said Aubrey. “Unpredictably. And we need you to tell us where and when it’s going to show up next.”

“Now, I know you like to keep to yourself,” Duck said, “and we’re not trying to take up too much of your time…”

Indrid had already stopped listening. “The demon will next materialize in the parking lot of the 7/11 on West Street. In about fifteen minutes. And in about half the futures you don’t manage to catch it, and I can’t say with any certainty where it’ll show up after that, so it’ll be most convenient if you just take me with you.”

“Oh,” said Aubrey. “Well, that’s simple. Let’s go!”

Indrid nodded, shut off the lights and the power strip that supported his many space heaters, and stood there expectantly, wallet and keys in his pocket. 

“Are you going to put a jacket on?” said Duck. “It ain’t winter or anything, but you’ve got it about ten degrees warmer in here than it is outside.”

“Oh! Yes, that would probably be a good idea, wouldn’t it.” Indrid retreated into his bedroom, careful to just open the door enough to get in and close it firmly behind him, and located a faded black zip-up hoodie. 

They rode to the 7/11 in Ned’s Lincoln Continental, Aubrey and Indrid together in the back seat. And no sooner had they pulled into the cracked parking lot and gotten out that the demon erupted from the concrete. 

Indrid had seen it before in his visions, but those tinny images couldn’t have prepared him for the real thing. The demon looked  _ flayed,  _ exposed musculature shining with blood, but its sunken eyes glittered with malice.

“Hey, ugly,” said Duck, and drew Beacon. His fighting stance was just like the March picture on the calendar, though here he was backlit in green by the 7/11, which Indrid privately thought was even better than the bland white light of the photoshoot. 

“Well,” the demon drawled. “You finally managed to find me.” Then it turned its gaze towards Indrid. “You.” It took a step forward. “You, now. You could be useful to me.”

Indrid shrank back. The futures were paralyzing, and there was nothing he could do about them.

The demon’s flesh rippled horribly. And then it was  _ Duck  _ standing in front of him, strong, handsome Duck, with his sturdy frame and soft hair. “You like me, don’t you?” he said, gently. “I like you, too. I can give you everything you want, everything you think about when you’re alone. You just have to come with me. _ ”  _ The demon extended a hand. 

How could it know? How could it know that he was so painfully lonely he went to sleep every night hugging a pillow to his chest imagining he had someone to hold, how could it know that the face he thought of when he lit his pine-scented candles and allowed himself to fantasize was always the same, with mismatched eyes and an Appalachian drawl?

“Don’t you want to be mine, sweet thing? Don’t you want to look at this face forever?”

“You’re a demon,” Indrid managed.

“Pretty hot, though, isn’t it?” Duck’s heroic smile had never been directed at Indrid before, and its force was almost overpowering. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t go for a bad boy. C’mon, Indrid. Just one kiss? I’ve wanted you for  _ so long…”  _

Indrid finally tore his eyes away from the demon and looked over at Duck. “Aren’t you going to kill it!?” But Duck was just standing there, open-mouthed. 

The demon stepped forward, took Indrid’s chin gently in its hand. “I know you’ve wondered what it’d be like to kiss me.” It was so close now that Indrid could feel its warm breath against his cheek. 

Indrid’s fingers closed in the pocket of his hoodie around something hard. A letter-opener replica of Beacon, which he hadn’t taken out of the jacket since the last time he’d been to the post office.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” the demon whispered. “It’s better than you’ve ever imagined.”

Indrid wasn’t a demon-slayer. But he did have a few tricks up his sleeve. 

The magic of Silvain flowed through his fingers and into the letter-opener with its little painted smile, lengthening and sharpening the blunt blade. It wasn’t much of a knife, but when he buried it in the demon’s belly, it was enough.

Indrid kept his eyes closed until the screams stopped sounding like Duck. He withdrew the letter-opener, wiped the blood off on a corner of his hoodie, and returned it to his pocket. The corpse of the demon was crumpled at his feet.

“Indrid…” said Duck, the real one.

“Leave.” Indrid’s voice was low and steady. “I’m going to get a Slurpee, and then I will walk home.” He went into the 7/11 without looking around. 

The refrigerator cases hummed in banal chorus, and the air smelled vaguely like hot dogs. Indrid liked convenience stores. You could almost believe, when you were in one, that time didn’t exist at all, that the universe was all the endless sameness of fluorescent light and neatly stocked shelves. He’d also been very happy when Earth society had progressed to the point of realizing that stores could be open at night as well. 

He walked past aisles of junk food towards the Slurpee machine, which churned with cherry, blue raspberry, and Coke-flavored slush. He filled up the largest available cup with cherry.

“Was that Duck Newton outside?” said the cashier when he went to pay.

“Yes,” said Indrid flatly.

“If I wasn’t on shift I’d have gone to get an autograph.” The cashier handed him back his card and a receipt. “Oh, well. Have a nice night, sir!”

“You too.”

Slurpee in hand, Indrid started the long walk home, kicking at the gravel along the shoulder of the highway as he went. What would Hell be like, anyway? Warm, probably. He  _ liked _ warm. The Slurpee was so cold his fingers hurt. His head, too, when he gulped down a mouthful. 

Fuck, he was an idiot. He should have just gone with the demon. 


	5. Incubus/Succubus

Once his anxiety about the abomination had settled, Duck had time and mental energy to worry about other things. Like Indrid. And how his refrigerator was completely empty, aside from a solitary carton of eggnog, and how, handsome as he was, he kind of looked like shit. 

“Do you not need to eat?” said Duck as he closed the fridge.

“Not as such,” Indrid replied without looking up. He was sitting at the Winnebago’s tiny table, sketching in an unhurried way. “Many moths do not eat in their adult forms. So when my ancestors came to Silvain, they found another way to sustain themselves. You are correct in thinking that I am in a state of starvation, but the magic of Silvain alone is quite enough to keep me alive, if not quite...” He waved a hand. “Healthy.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

_ Now  _ Indrid looked up. “I feed on the pleasure of others.”

“You’re an incubus?” Duck’s imagination, unhelpfully, did not wait for an answer. And hey, if sex would keep Indrid from starving… well, Duck wouldn’t say no, nothing to do with the fact that Indrid had quite possibly the most kissable lips in Kepler.

“One might say, although the pleasure need not be sexual. But it has been years since I’ve been any good to anyone.”

Duck could argue with that. Indrid had recently been instrumental in stopping the deaths of several people. But maybe that wasn’t really “pleasure.”

“If you really want to help me out - and keep in mind you don’t have to, my life is in no danger and I’m quite used to it by now - you could… let me make you happy.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” 

Indrid set his pencil and sketchbook down on the table and looked thoughtfully over at Duck. “I’ve been told I give good massages.”

“I’m down.” Duck paused. “Like, right now?”

Indrid’s lips quirked into a smile, one of his less alarming ones. “Unless you have other plans?”

“Oh! Okay, yeah, should I lie down, or -”

“Take your shirt off first, if you don’t mind. And then facedown on the couch; make yourself comfortable.”

Indrid went into his bedroom to go get supplies, and when he returned Duck had already settled into place, chin propped up on his hands.

“Do you mind if I sit on you? It’ll give me a better angle.”

Duck blinked. “Oh, sure. I mean, no, I don’t mind, go right ahead.”

“Thanks,” said Indrid quietly, and then he was straddling Duck’s ass. His body was almost alarmingly light. He tipped massage oil onto Duck’s bare back and rubbed it gently in. “Have you ever had a massage before?”

“Not a real one.”

“I’ll be gentle, then.” His fingertips pressed into Duck’s shoulder. “You’re very tight.”

Duck resisted the urge to squirm. “You can go harder than that, I’m still a chosen.”

“Alright.” Indrid’s hands were thin but very, very strong, and he was businesslike about it, feeling out the knots generated by work and abomination-fighting and being middle-aged in general. 

Duck couldn’t keep himself from groaning. “Is this doing anything for you? Because it’s -  _ fuck  _ \- definitely doing something for me.”

“Yes,” said Indrid, and was Duck imagining it, or was his smooth voice getting breathier?

For a while Duck just lay there, until Indrid did something with his hands that literally made him shudder in ecstasy. “How are you so good at this?”

“I worked at a massage parlor in the seventies and eighties.” 

Duck bit back a joke about massages and happy endings, but the way Indrid laughed suggested there was at least one future where he hadn’t. “It was, indeed, a very good source of pleasure.”

“Why’d you stop, then?”

Indrid paused, and it took all of Duck’s self-control not to whine. “God, I don’t even know. You ever have one of those days where you just can’t get out of bed?”

“Yeah.”

“I had one of those… three and a half decades.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Indrid started massaging again. “Working with the Pine Guard has been good for me, I think, and of course I appreciate you letting me feel you up.”

“Oh, yeah,” Duck mumbled. “Real fuckin’ selfless of me.” He felt like he was about to melt into the couch.

“I could do your feet next, if you’d like.”

“Hngh. Sounds good to me.”

Finally Indrid seemed satisfied and got off Duck’s back. Duck was so wrung-out it took him a minute, but when he managed to haul himself up into a sitting position, he could already see the difference in Indrid’s face. He was still thin, but the hollows under his eyes weren’t quite so pronounced, his hair less dull. 

There was a basket next to the couch with the bottle of massage oil in it, plus scented lotions and soaps and a rainbow of nail polish. 

“Do you use all this stuff on yourself normally?” Duck asked. He could see that Indrid’s fingernails were painted chipped black. 

Indrid looked down at him, his glasses reflecting the warm light of the room. “Yes, I like how it feels.” Then he sank to the ground and pulled one of Duck’s feet into his lap. 

“If you tickle me I’m kicking you in the face,” Duck warned.

“Noted.” Indrid was smiling, and he honestly looked calmer than Duck had ever seen him. Like making Duck feel good had chased out worrying about the future. And he  _ was  _ making Duck feel good, digging his fingers into the balls of his feet - Duck hadn’t realized how much of a number weeks of running around had done on his feet until Indrid was working the ache away. 

Eventually Indrid turned his attention to the other foot, and Duck wriggled his newly-refreshed toes. He could understand, at some level, how Indrid got so much out of this. He knew how it felt to see someone’s eyes light up when he pointed out a herd of deer perfectly camouflaged among the trees, or when a group of hikers came sweaty and beaming into the visitors center and he remembered his job was really about beauty, about giving people a place to go to feel okay.

“I could give you a mani-pedi, if you wanted,” Indrid mused. “Paint your nails.”

“My toenails, maybe? I know it’s dumb, but I’m worried painting my fingernails will make me feel… too femme, somehow.”

“That’s not dumb. Whatever you feel most comfortable with.” Indrid got to his feet and went to wash the massage oil off his hands. “What color do you want?”

“Green? It’d be on-brand.”

“And it does look good on you.” Indrid sat down on the floor again and started arranging his supplies. It was like Indrid had a goddamn spa in here, with a towel for Duck to rest his feet on and foam nail dividers and lavender-scented lotion. Then he held up a bottle of forest-green polish for Duck’s approval, and went to work. 

It’d been years since Duck had had his nails painted, and the sensation brought him right back to sleepovers with Juno in middle school. The smell of the nail polish, the slight chill of it when it brushed his nail beds, the smooth motion of brush into bottle and wiping the excess off on the rim. 

Indrid’s hands were steady as he worked, applying a coat far neater and more even than Duck had ever managed. In between coats he screwed the bottle closed again and sat with his knees to his chest, looking up at Duck. 

Duck looked down at Indrid and at the deep green on his own toes. “Now whenever I look down in the shower I’ll think of you.”

“I must say, I like the idea of you thinking of me when you’re in the shower.”

If he didn’t have wet nail polish on, Duck would have yanked Indrid up to the couch and kissed him right then. As it was, he could only look, admiring the soft silver hair curling around the shell of Indrid’s ear, the sharp line of his jaw. “What does it feel like, for you? Feeding?”

Looking thoughtful, Indrid started in on the second coat. “Really good. I’m not sure how to put it. I’m sure there’s some analogy to the hunger you feel, but I couldn’t say what. It’s like… it’s like I’m a balloon finally being filled full enough to take shape. At first it hurt, because I hadn’t done it in so long, wasn’t used to it, but now… now I just feel like I’m floating. Thank you for doing this for me, Duck, really.” 

“Anytime.” Duck couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like to feed on something intangible, to feel satiety without the accompanying mouth-sensations he was used to. “You deserve to be okay.”

Indrid paused, brush in hand, and looked up at him. “Thank you, Duck.”

When Indrid finished with the second coat, he put the nail polish away and sat down on the couch. “You’re not allowed to get up until those dry.”

Duck nodded. Indrid’s hand rested only half an inch from his own, a distance easily closed, and then their fingers were laced together, Indrid’s cool and soft from the massage oil.

“You’re very good with your hands,” Duck said, shifting even closer.

“Thank you,” Indrid replied, and stroked Duck’s hand with his thumb. They were sitting so close, thighs pressed together, and when Indrid turned his head Duck only had to lean in a little to kiss him. 

“Oh,” said Indrid, very softly, when Duck pulled away again. “I… like you very much.”

“I like you too.” Duck squeezed Indrid’s hand. “Do you want to, uh, keep doing that?”

“Very much. But you’re staying right there, because I am not letting you mess up your nail polish.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Laughing, Indrid caught Duck’s lips in another kiss, and then swung his leg up to straddle Duck’s lap, effectively pinning him to the couch.

Duck had expected him to be in a hurry, chasing pleasure, but Indrid kissed like he had all the time in the world. Duck put his hands on Indrid’s hips and tugged him closer. Indrid smiled against his lips, pulled back just enough to whisper. “You know, I do  _ do…  _ more traditional incubus things.”

“ _ Yes, _ ” said Duck, and tried to get up, but Indrid pushed his shoulders back into the couch.

“Ah-ah-ah. Not until the polish dries.”

Duck groaned. “Hurry up and keep kissing me, then?”

Indrid’s smile was dazzling, the eyes beneath his glasses bright and full of energy. “With pleasure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm combining the next two prompts (leshen and shapeshifter) so the next chapter will take two days but it will be extra fun


	6. Shifter + Leshen

Either Monongahela National Forest needed to start marking their trails more clearly or Indrid needed to get better at reading trail markers, because he’d embarked on a three mile loop from the campground at one in the afternoon, and now the sun was setting and he had no everloving clue where he was. 

He’d already eaten all his granola bars and drank the water he’d brought with him, and was now tramping somewhat aimlessly through the underbrush, on the off-chance he’d see something he recognized. Every so often he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see nothing but the shadows cast by leaves fluttering in the wind.

And then he saw the bear. A silhouette through the trees, a great brown head with rounded ears. Looking right at him. 

Fuck. What were you supposed to do when you saw a bear? Indrid was not an experienced outdoorsman by any means. Weren’t bears supposed to be scared of humans?

“Hey, bear!” he shouted. “I’m a human!” The bear just blinked. “Well, I’ve done all I can do,” Indrid muttered, and started walking in the opposite direction.

When he stopped long enough to look over his shoulder, the bear was gone. He let out a long breath. And then, to his right, he saw it again. The bear was standing upright, now, deep brown fur thick on its shoulders and patchier on its belly. Indrid turned left and kept walking. Five minutes later, the bear was again on his right. 

Wait a second. If it was chasing him, wouldn’t it still be behind him?

Indrid didn’t have time to fully process that thought before he heard a branch snap and looked around again. The bear was sprinting towards him on all fours, and Indrid dropped to the ground, instinctively covering his head. He could hear the bear’s paws thundering against the ground as it neared him, and then… ran past?

Indrid peered out from between his fingers. The bear was tackling a tree. Oh, wait, nope, not a tree.

The beast that almost certainly wasn’t a tree turned to look straight at Indrid. Branches twisted together into a body, topped off by the skull of a deer with branching antlers. Indrid could see straight through the eye sockets that the skull was empty. Whatever animating force this thing had, it wasn’t a brain.

The bear took advantage of the tree-monster’s momentary distraction to seize one woody arm between its teeth and haul backwards, overbalancing it, dragging it away from Indrid. 

Indrid stood paralyzed. He wasn’t sure whose side he was on, here: a bear was more likely to eat a person than a tree was, as far as he knew, but the bear had run  _ past  _ him to get to the tree-monster. The deer skull was undeniably ominous, but Indrid was sort of goth, anyway. 

One of the tree’s limbs whipped the bear across the chest, hard, and Indrid winced sympathetically. Apparently mammalian solidarity won out. 

The tree-monster was a good bit taller, but the bear seemed smarter, knowing how to time its attacks to catch its foe off-balance and dodge out of the way of most of the tree’s wide swings. And then the bear stood up on its hind legs, and for one crazed moment Indrid saw the silhouette of a person underneath the bear’s pelt and bulk.

But then the bear was a bear again. Its ivory teeth clacked against the hard bone of the monster’s skull, claws scoring deep grooves into the mossy bark, and it threw its whole body backwards, ripping the tree-monster’s head off with it. The twisted branches went still, the skull crumbled into dust.

The bear turned aside to spit out the monster-dust. It strolled over to Indrid on its hind legs, and Indrid could see that it was probably eight feet tall.

“You protected me,” said Indrid. “Why? Are you a mama bear? Do you think I’m a baby bear or something?” Indrid’s gaze slid down the bear’s belly. “Not a mama bear. Daddy bear?”

The bear snorted and dropped back onto four feet, nudging its nose into the center of Indrid’s chest like a dog begging for attention. Unthinkingly, he scratched behind its ears. Then the bear caught Indrid’s wrist in its jaws, so gently its teeth didn’t even pierce his jacket, and started backing up. Indrid stumbled forward after it. “Do you want me to follow you?” 

The bear nodded without letting go, shaking Indrid’s arm as it did. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll follow you, you don’t have to drag me.” 

The bear let go and continued walking. It looked over its shoulder every few minutes to make sure Indrid was still with it, but Indrid wasn’t about to abandon the one creature who seemed to have an interest in protecting him. It was easier navigating the underbrush in the tracks of a larger creature than it had been on his own, anyway. 

Eventually they came to a stream, and Indrid hurried forward, thirsty enough to take his chances with fish pee and crawdads. He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and brought cupped handfuls of water to his mouth over and over again to drink.

The sound of a zipper made him turn around. “Hey!” The bear had managed to hook one claw on the zipper of Indrid’s backpack and pull it open. But the bear didn’t seem interested in whatever Nature Valley crumbs it might be able to scavenge. Instead it dragged out the Edible Flora of West Virginia pamphlet Indrid had picked up at the ranger station the day before, getting its claw between the pages and pointing at a picture in the section on wild grapes. “Riverbank grape?”

The bear gestured at a tree above Indrid’s head, which had a leafy vine wrapped around the trunk, heavy with blue-black berries. “Holy shit.” Indrid compared with the pamphlet. “Well, we are near a river. And these are safe to eat?”

The bear nodded.

Indrid plucked one of the more appealing-looking grapes off the branch and popped it into his mouth. It was juicy, slightly sour, but good. “If they ever let bears be park rangers, I’ll be sure to nominate you for the position.”

When Indrid had finished off all the grapes on the vine, it was dark for real, and only by the moonlight bouncing off the stream could he see the shape of the bear next to him. “Well, now I’m really not going to be able to find my way back to camp tonight.”

The bear nosed at his wrist.

“You want me to follow you again?”

The bear nodded.

“I don’t think I can make it far without tripping in the dark.”

The bear snorted, and lowered itself to the ground, tossing its head to indicate its back.

“You’ll let me  _ ride  _ you?”

A nod.

“Thank you.” Indrid’s blood was rushing as he swung one leg over the bear’s broad back and hung on to the thick fur on the back of its neck as it got to its feet again. What did bears like? Honey? He bent close to the bear’s back to avoid hitting his head on low-hanging branches as it moved through the forest. He’d buy up every bottle of honey in the store if that was what this one wanted. 

The bear stopped at the mouth of a shallow cave, and lay down again so Indrid could slip off. When he was safely back on the ground it rolled over onto its side and splayed out, clearly conveying that it wasn’t planning on getting up anytime soon.

“Well, I guess this is how we’re doing this.” Indrid sat down, leaning against the bear, burying his fingers in the thick, soft fur on its chest. “If a park ranger comes to rescue me tomorrow I hope it’s the hot one,” he said after a while. 

The previous day Indrid had gone to the ranger station and ended up in conversation with the ranger on duty: a middle-aged man with bright, mismatched eyes, who’d offered him the edible flora pamphlet and winked as he’d told him to come back anytime. “He’s a bear, too. A different kind of bear.” Indrid sighed, remembering the green ranger uniform stretched over the kind of ass he dearly wanted to get his mouth on.

“If he shows up I’ll be sure to bat my eyelashes at him. Ask if there’s  _ anything _ I can do to repay him for his kindness in rescuing me.” The bear snorted, and Indrid laughed and turned around to bury his face in its fur. It was luxuriously soft, pleasant against his face, and smelled nice, too, like the kind of masculine body-wash Indrid liked immensely on other people. 

“So if I do get rescued tomorrow. Do I tell anyone about the tree monster or no?” Indrid paused for a moment, but the bear didn’t respond. “You’re right, they’d probably just think I was crazy. Definitely not going to tell them about hanging out with a bear.”

He yawned. The bear curled its huge body around him, soft and warm, and Indrid promptly surprised himself by falling asleep. 

When he woke up, his fingers were no longer curled in the fur of a bear. No. He was holding onto the chest hair of a human man. A completely naked human man, with a strong, soft body, which Indrid was in no way admiring, just like he wasn’t following the trail of hair as it thickened on his lower belly and between his legs - 

He wrenched his eyes up to the bear-man’s face. Oh,  _ fuck.  _ That’s why the bear had known about the pamphlet of edible flora in Indrid’s backpack. Because he’d given it to him. 

Indrid extricating himself must have been enough to wake him up, because the hot park ranger groaned and stretched. “G’morning.”

“Good morning,” Indrid squeaked.

“What’s your name, by the way? I wanted to ask.”

“Indrid.”

“I’m Duck. It’s a nickname.” Duck seemed totally at ease with the situation, and Indrid could only guess that this was not his first rodeo. 

“And you are… naked.”

Duck raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been naked this whole time.”

“But before I thought you were an actual bear!”

“Really? You thought I was a real bear? But my paw pads are totally different! And only black bears live in this area, but I’m definitely brown.”

“I’m not an ursinologist!”

“Fair.” Duck rolled over onto his back, folded his hands behind his head. “I’m a were-bear. I usually spend the time I’m transformed relaxing, but  _ someone  _ had to go and get himself lost in the woods and in need of shepherding.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Ah, it’s not your fault. And it’s definitely not your fault that leshen went after you.”

“Leshen? Is that what that was?”

“The ugly tree thing? Yep. Real pieces of work, they are. Totally against humans being in the woods, which is stupid, because the forests in North America have been actively managed by humans for the past ten thousand years.” Duck shook his head. “Sorry, the pristine myth really pisses me off.”

“Why were you following me? Before the leshen showed up?”

“I wasn’t. I was trying to herd you back to the path, but you’d made it pretty far afield. We’re only about a mile and a half away from the ranger station now, so it won’t take too long to get you back to civilization.”

“You know where we are?”

“Course I do. Hate to disappoint, but you can consider yourself rescued.”

Indrid attempted an alluring smile. He wasn’t good at flirting, not generally, but if there ever was a situation to break the mold, this was it. “Well, if there’s anything I can do to repay you for your kindness…”

Suddenly Duck sounded sheepish. “You don’t owe me anything. I do know most of the folks who work in Monongahela, though, so if you tell me who’s the hot one I might be able to set you up.” And then he caught the look on Indrid’s face. “Oh.  _ Oh.” _

Indrid turned away, embarrassed at his own forwardness, but Duck touched his cheek, and when Indrid looked back he could see the heat in Duck’s eyes. “You’ve really got a thing for bears, huh?” Duck teased. 

Indrid leaned in and kissed him. And Duck growled, honest-to-god  _ growled,  _ which was possibly the hottest sound Indrid had ever heard, and kissed him back. 

“Fucking lucky for me you do because I’ve got a thing for cute, idiotic hikers.” Duck pulled Indrid down on top of him by the shirt, and Indrid clung to him, wanting  _ more more more.  _ “Do you know how much it sucked not being able to talk back to you last night?  _ Daddy bear?  _ Really?”

Indrid laughed. “In my defense, at that point I didn’t think you could understand me.” 

Duck kissed him again, tongue lingering on the ring in Indrid’s lip. 

“Hey,” said Indrid, stroking Duck’s bare chest. “Wanna find out where else I’ve got piercings?” 

“Absolutely.”


	7. Sea Creature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the myth of perseus and andromeda except the perseus figure is ALSO a sea monster? it's more likely than you think

Duck Newton was forty-five, unmarried, and had what was widely considered a frivolous job. In other words, he was expendable, and the obvious choice for chaining to the cliff when a sacrifice was required. And, as a few of his neighbors had commented loudly enough for him to overhear, he was husky enough to make good eating. 

At least it was a beautiful day. The sky was blue, the waves lapping placidly at the sand a few yards from his feet. They’d decked him out in what he considered some very tacky gold jewelry, and his chest was bare. He could only hope the monster would show up and eat him before he got too badly sunburnt. 

And it looked like he might be in luck, because the pattern of swells had broken, something uncomfortably large writhing just under the surface. And then the something reached the beach, and rested its long head on the sand like a dog in someone’s lap. 

Duck had been told that the abomination was indescribable, but the creature before him looked decidedly serpentine. It was clammy-pale with red markings around the eyes and the face of a grinning moray eel, a mouth full of needle teeth. “What a pretty, shining thing you are,” the sea monster murmured.

“Are you the abomination?” said Duck. He was fairly certain the abomination didn’t talk. 

“No,” said the serpent. “My name is Indrid.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be a sacrifice for the abomination.”

“Oh.” Indrid seemed to think for a moment. “If I defeat the abomination, then can I have you?”

“I guess?” A monster that could talk was a monster that could be reasoned with, and thus preferable in Duck’s book.

And just in the nick of time, too, because the abomination arrived, and it was truly indescribable, three times as big as Indrid at least, with mud and sand pouring off its back into the churning ocean. Indrid tore his gaze away from Duck and hissed, undaunted. Duck flinched at the flash of the abomination’s claws, but Indrid was too slippery for it to get a grip on, and he writhed back easily and sank his needle-teeth into the abomination’s neck. He was too serpentine to get much leverage, but what he could do was tie his body into a literal actual knot and rip free huge chunks of flesh that way, revealing the abomination’s layers of white blubber. 

Finally the abomination sank beneath the red water and did not resurface. Indrid came up again to rest his head on the beach. One of his teeth was broken, almost pulled out of its socket, and he whimpered unhappily as blood and seawater dripped down his lips. 

“Do you think you could unchain me?” said Duck.

“Ah. Yes.” Indrid managed to haul himself far enough up the beach to catch the chains on his teeth, as far away from Duck’s body as he could manage. When he pulled away, it was the stone that gave, crumbling under the force until the chain was loose enough that Duck could slip free. 

“Now you’re mine,” said Indrid, sounding very pleased with himself as he slithered backwards until he was mostly in the water again.

Duck sat down on the beach. “Yep.”

“You need air to breathe, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can’t take you with me,” said Indrid sadly. “I have a very nice house. I wish you could come see it.”

“I'm sure you do.” Duck gestured to the broken tooth. “Need a little help there?”

“If you wouldn’t mind…” said Indrid. “It shouldn’t be too hard to pull out all the way, just to stop it from getting infected.” 

Duck got up and walked down the beach. Indrid’s teeth were each the length of his forearm, and he couldn’t believe he was voluntarily approaching a mouth full of them. But Indrid held his mouth open as far as it could go, which was very far, and didn’t move as Duck got a grip on the broken tooth. “On the count of three, alright? One, two… three!” 

Duck pulled, and Indrid screamed. But his mouth stayed open, and the tooth came away in Duck’s hands. 

“Sorry,” said Indrid. “I’ve always been a baby about pain.” He took a mouthful of seawater and swished it around for a moment, then spit it out, bloodied. “Will you tell me your name, shiny thing?”

“Duck,” said Duck.

“Well, Duck, I will cherish the memory of our meeting always.”

The finality with which he said it caught Duck by surprise. “You’re… letting me go?”

“We’ve well established that I can’t take you with me.”

“That is true.”

“I don’t suppose,” Indrid said carefully, hopefully, “you’d let me have a lick before I go? For the road?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Not because I’d like to eat you,” Indrid added hurriedly. “It’s just, well, when you don’t have hands, your tongue does a lot of sensory work. And you’re very shiny and I’d like to find out how you feel.”

Shiny. Indrid kept calling him that. “I’m not shiny,” said Duck. “I’m just wearing a bunch of gold.” He took the necklaces off from around his neck and held them out.

Indrid tilted his head to one side. “A flower is still beautiful even when the sun is not around to illuminate it.”

Duck had no idea what that meant. For lack of anything better to do, he put the necklaces back on. Indrid’s eyes were pupil-less, unreadable. “Alright,” said Duck. “You can lick me. Just once, though, and then I’m leaving.”

“Thank you!” said Indrid, and extended his flexible tongue.

Duck had expected it to be gross. It wasn’t. His skin tingled pleasantly where Indrid’s tongue touched it, and his dick twitched involuntarily when it laved over his nipples. Well, that was something unpack later.

Almost too soon, Indrid pulled away. “Until we meet again, Duck.”

“Goodbye.” Duck waved, and Indrid’s serpentine form disappeared between the waves again. 

Duck made the long trudge back to his own house, which was full of people dividing up his possessions. “Duck!” said Dave, of Dave’s Fantasy Dehumidifier Depot. “We heard screaming and thought you’d beefed it!”

“That wasn’t my screaming,” said Duck. 

“I told you!” said Ned Chicane triumphantly. “I told you Duck wouldn’t scream all girly like that! What, did it break a tooth on all your bling?”

Duck hurriedly put down Indrid’s bloody tooth, which he’d forgotten he was still holding. “Oh, uh, no.”

“So whose screaming was it?” said Winthrop suspiciously.

Duck crossed the room and took his pride and joy model ship out of Winthrop’s hands. “Another monster showed up and killed the abomination.”

“ _What?_ And then what happened to that monster?"

“He left. He couldn’t take me with him because I can’t breathe underwater.”

“Well, what good does that do us? Now we’ve got a _second_ monster angry with us!”

“I don’t think he is,” said Duck. 

“Witch!” spat Winthrop, turning to look at Aubrey Little. “Can you make some kind of potion that will give him the ability to breathe underwater?”

“Uh, yeah, probably?” Aubrey was holding Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, in her arms like a baby, unwilling to let him down in a house with a cat. “Actually, definitely a hundred percent I can. Duck, come with me?”

“None of y’all better take any of my shit,” said Duck as Aubrey pulled him by the arm out of the house. “If I’m getting carried off I need time to pack.” When they reached the alley, Aubrey turned around to face him. “What gives? You’re doing Winthrop’s bidding now?”

“Ew, no. I just needed to get you alone to ask what really happened.”

Duck took a deep breath. “This sea serpent showed up? He said his name was Indrid, and I told him I was a sacrifice for the abomination, and he asked if he could have me if he defeated the abomination. I said yes, and he absolutely kicked the abomination’s ass and ripped off the chains. But then he asked if I could breathe underwater, and I said no, and he said ‘oh, well, then I can’t take you with me,’ and then he left.”

“Indrid, huh?” Aubrey was smiling in a way Duck did not like at all. “What’s he like?”

“Weird? Polite? He said some stuff about flowers I didn’t understand.”

“How would a sea monster even know what flowers are? _”_

“I didn’t think about that. I have no idea.”

“Well, you can ask him the next time you see him.”

“I’m not gonna see him again!”

“Really? I mean, it’s your choice, but if a hot sea monster was offering to carry me off, I’d take them up on it. This town sucks.”

Duck sighed. “You have a point with that one.”

“Also, like, it’s gonna take me a while to magic you a set of gills. You have some time to get to know him better before he carries you off to his sexy sea-palace.”

\--

The next time Duck stood alone on the beach, a chilly wind chased the gray clouds hurrying across the sky. He felt like a little bit of an idiot. What were the odds that Indrid would even show up?

But sure enough, the waters parted to reveal a long, gray body, and Indrid rested his head on the sand once again, just out of reach of the saves. Duck picked his way down the beach to sit down next to him, and Indrid grinned. “Come to see me, shining human of mine?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Duck had done some self-reflection since the last time they’d met, self-reflection that had ended with him cumming hard on his own fingers imagining Indrid licking him all over and calling him _mine, all mine, my pretty shiny thing._ “I’m actually kind of curious about… you?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. So what’s your, like, whole deal? Are there a bunch of others of… whatever you are… living at the bottom of the ocean?”

“No, I am the only one of my kind. I arose fully-formed from seafoam and moonlight.”

“Right, right, of course. And… how long ago was this, exactly?”

Silence. Indrid was frowning.

“And how do you know what a flower is?”

More silence.

Finally, Indrid spoke, slowly. “I… don’t know. And I know that doesn’t make sense, and I know coming from seafoam and moonlight also doesn’t make sense. But that’s all I remember. I wasn’t, and then I was.”

“Do you know other things about life on land?”

“I think so. I know purple is the most expensive pigment to paint with. I always feel a little bit bad for the flowers when they sprout too early in the spring and get frozen, even though I know they can’t feel.” Indrid paused for a moment. “And I know about food, I like eggnog and those little hard candies that come in every color, I haven’t had any of those in… never? I can’t remember having them, ever, but I know exactly how they taste.”

Duck looked at him in silence. It had only been a week, but Indrid’s missing tooth had already grown back. (Not knowing what else to do with it, Duck had put the old one in the china cabinet, next to his grandmother’s fancy dishware.) 

“Duck,” said Indrid, very quietly. “I think the ocean took something from me.”

“Is this a bad time to tell you I’ve got a friend working on some magic that’ll make me breathe underwater so you can actually carry me off?”

Indrid looked over at him. “Really? You’d really want that?”

“I mean, you don’t have to.”

“I just thought… I’m a monster, Duck, and you’re a very attractive human, why would you want anything to do with me? I was expecting never to see you again.”

“I’m yours. You won me fair and square.” Duck couldn’t say the truth, that a monster who wanted him was better than a city that didn’t. “And… if the ocean took something from you, maybe we could get it back?”

“Thank you.”

Duck reached out and touched him. Indrid’s skin reminded him of that of a ray, cool and smooth and soft. 

“Mmm, that feels good.”

Duck scratched gently, and Indrid groaned in pleasure, which made him scratch harder. 

“I’m going to roll over, don’t let me squish you.” Duck stood back, and Indrid flopped onto his back, revealing his pale belly. 

“I’ve got you, buddy.” Duck scritched at him with both hands, amused at how Indrid squirmed, eyes drifting closed. 

_“Duck,”_ he whined, high and needy.

Duck couldn’t tell if it was sexual or not, but he knew that if _he_ was a sea serpent with no hands to masturbate with, he’d be sexually frustrated as hell. And that thought conjured up an image of Indrid rutting against the seafloor, helpless with pleasure, moaning Duck’s name into the water. 

“Duck?” said Indrid. “Why’d you stop?”

“Sorry,” said Duck. He hadn’t even realized that his hands had stilled. “Got distracted.” And then he turned his full attention back to making his serpent writhe. 


	8. Selkie

The museum was quiet, after hours. It was always quiet, not many people wanting to learn about the supremely forgettable ships that had probed this supremely forgettable bay or see taxidermy specimens of the same creatures that lived everywhere up and down the coast, but now, when the front door was locked and the overhead lights were off, it was so quiet even breathing felt like an imposition on the silence. 

Duck Newton, the museum’s curator and ticket-collector and janitor in one, was standing in front of a glass display case. A sealskin lay folded inside, with an inked card reading GRAY SEAL:  _ Halichoerus grypus.  _

Next to Duck stood a tall, fat man in a long gray coat. His name was Indrid Cold, and he did not work for the museum, but Duck would never think of asking him to leave, and one benefit of being the museum’s only employee was there was no one to tell him off for it. 

Indrid’s hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, and when he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Anything.” Indrid had been his friend for over a year now, Indrid who came every single day to the museum to look at the creatures on display and learn about the forgettable ships. Duck was really hoping that Indrid would ask him out. But he didn’t.

Indrid gestured to the sealskin in the case. “It’s mine.”

It took Duck a moment to process what he’d said.

“I’m a selkie,” said Indrid. “This is my pelt. It was stolen from me… decades ago. It was passed down through human generations, and now it’s here.”

Duck looked at Indrid and knew it was true. He took the keyring out of his pocket, hands shaking so hard he could hardly sort through the keys, and found the small silver one that would unlock the case. The glass door swung open, and Duck reached in and took out the pelt. It was soft and heavy, falling in folds around his hands. “Take it.”

Indrid snatched the pelt and held it to his chest. He didn’t say thank you. Why would he? He’d only been given back what was already his. But what he did do, with the pelt still clutched close, was touch Duck’s cheek, and what he did was kiss him. 

And then he was gone. When Duck opened his eyes again all he saw was the hem of a gray coat slipping out the door.

\--

Indrid had been living as a human for so many years that he’d almost forgotten what the ocean was like. But the water welcomed him home, as he’d known it would, and it felt  _ amazing.  _

On land he’d always been a bit too big. Too tall to get through doorways, too wide for some chairs. In the sea he was tiny again, and light, buoyed by water. On land he’d always felt a little bit chilly, as one might expect of someone missing a layer of skin. But even though the water was freezing, his blubber and pelt kept him warm.

He had promised himself many times over the years that he would never again fall for a human. Never again make the mistake of falling asleep in a human’s bed and waking up without himself. And as he swam as fast as he could away from the museum on the shore, he tried his best to put Duck Newton out of his mind.

\--

Duck spent the next couple of days beating himself up. He felt terrible for not realizing sooner why Indrid came to the museum every single day and stared at that one case and smiled his enigmatic smile. Because of course Indrid had only been friendly with him to get the skin back, and Duck didn’t blame him. 

(He didn’t know what to make of the kiss goodbye.)

He threw away the card that read GRAY SEAL:  _ Halichoerus grypus  _ and filled the glass case with some Revolutionary War-era belt buckles out of storage. Nobody noticed, of course. He had no boss to question him giving away parts of the collection. 

Winter came, and the ocean thrashed at the shore, ice crystallizing around bare branches. Spring came, too, and the daffodils in the bed out front of the museum pushed their green fingernails through the soil into the air. And when summer came, slicking his shirt to his back with sweat, Duck escaped the clouds of mosquitoes by going down to the narrow strip of beach along the forgettable bay. 

Duck stripped down to his trunks, but when he dipped a toe into the water, it was still so cold he retreated to his towel and contented himself with lying in the sun. He was staring out at the horizon when he realized the round head of a seal had poked through the surface, maybe ten feet from shore. His heart leapt, and he immediately squashed it down again. It couldn’t be.

But then the seal rode the waves towards the beach, and it was hauling itself up on its flippers, and Duck was on his feet. 

He knew that pelt. He’d spent years staring at it in a case. But even more than that he knew those eyes, he’d always thought he had such gorgeous brown eyes. “Indrid?”

The seal shuddered, and its skin split. It was a horrible thing to watch, the flaying, but Duck couldn’t tear his eyes away. And then a tall, fat man was on his hands and knees in the surf, pelt wrapped around his waist to protect his modesty, and Indrid was getting to his feet. “Hello, Duck.”

“Are you alright? What are you doing here?”

Indrid shrugged. “I missed you.”

“Oh,” said Duck. “I… missed you too.” 

“I didn’t mean to make you get up,” Indrid teased, and gestured back at the towel. 

“Uh - alright. I was just, y’know, seals don’t normally approach humans, so I got up to see -” Duck stumbled backwards and sat down on the towel again. 

Indrid spread out his skin on the sand, fur-side down, and lay down on it, propping himself up on his elbows. “A naturalist to the last. And of course it’s a bad idea to approach a seal, anyway. We do tend to attract sharks.” His smile was unreadable as always. “So how’s the museum?”

“Last week a class of kindergarteners came on a field trip, and I had fun showing them around.”

“Aww,” said Indrid softly. “That’s cute.” In all the months since Duck had seen him, Indrid’s hair hadn’t gotten any longer.

“I really wasn’t expecting you to come back. I thought… I thought you’d only been trying to get close to me to get your pelt back. Which would be totally understandable.”

“At first I was. But you don’t leave your keyring lying around, and I guess I got attached. And you - Duck, very few humans would have done what you did. You’re a good man.”

Duck took a deep breath. “Why did you kiss me?”

Indrid took such a long time responding that Duck almost apologized for asking. But finally Indrid spoke. “Can I do it again?”

\--

Indrid had sworn to himself that he would never again fall asleep in a human’s bed. But Duck was such a gentleman that he’d let his guard down: Duck never demanded anything of him, never had, not even when he had held Indrid’s pelt in his hand and could have asked for anything in exchange. 

Kissing Duck made him feel warm inside, even through the skinless chill of life on land. Indrid liked it so much he had asked coyly if Duck might like to go somewhere more secluded, wanted more so much that he’d gotten into Duck’s car with him and been driven inland, followed Duck into his house, into his bedroom.

Duck didn’t so much look at his pelt, just at his face, holding his hand and saying _whatever you’re comfortable with._ Indrid kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and even that wasn’t enough, he found himself wanting Duck as the ocean wanted the shore, wanting everything and always. The dick Duck fucked him with _vibrated,_ and that was better than anything even the ocean could provide, Indrid on his back with his pelt beneath him and his heels digging into Duck’s ass.

And afterwards Indrid had allowed his eyes to close, and now here he was. Waking up. In a human’s bed.  _ Alone.  _

He flinched hard, scrabbling at the sheets. His fingers found his pelt almost immediately and he wrapped it around his shoulders, felt it wanting to melt back onto him. Safe. He was still safe, still whole. Even so, it took him a while to get his heart rate back to normal. 

The blinds were closed in Duck’s bedroom, softening the morning light, and the comforter was pale green and smelled like Duck. The sheets smelled like Duck, too. The closet door was slightly ajar, and Indrid could see a row of Duck’s clean shirts hanging there. Human.

The man himself was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs in a pan. “Good morning,” Duck said, smiling up at Indrid when he emerged. “Want some breakfast?”

“Good morning.” Indrid bent down to kiss him on the cheek. “I need to go home.”

“Alright.” Duck couldn’t quite conceal his disappointment, but Indrid appreciated the effort.

“But I would like to keep coming back to see you, if you’d be alright with that.”

Duck smiled. “You’re always welcome here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter might take a while because i don't have it written yet


	9. Mermaid

The human had come to the reef every day for the past week. He arrived in a boat that was very fast and very loud, but thankfully when he dropped the anchor (not on top of the coral) the boat went quiet again. And then the human put on a strange suit with a bulky backpack and leapt backwards into the water, and floated just above the bottom for several hours, staring at nothing and making notes on a waterproof slate he’d brought with him.

For the first few days Indrid watched, hidden behind a rise of coral. Then he’d gone about business as usual and tried to forget that the human was there. Today, though, Indrid’s curiosity got the better of him, and he swam over to float just behind the human’s shoulder, trying to figure out what exactly it was that he was looking at. A patch of unremarkable pink coral. 

Terrestrial futures had always been more difficult for him. He knew where the fish were going, when the hurricanes came, when the corals would spawn, but this human was a mystery. “What are you looking at?

The human was so surprised that he spit out the black piece of plastic in his mouth and started thrashing in panicked confusion.

“Oh, dear.” Indrid grabbed the human by the hand and with two quick pumps of his tail dragged him the twenty feet or so to the surface. The human burst through the surface, gasping, eyes wide. “Sorry,” said Indrid sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

“Holy fuck,” said the human. He looked down, at Indrid’s tail beneath the surface. “You’re…”

“Mer, yes, and this is my reef, and I’d really like to know what you’re doing here.”

“I’m observing the pygmy seahorses.”

Indrid blinked. “Why?”

“So we’ll know how to protect them.”

Indrid started laughing, and then clamped it down when he remembered how alarming his laugh sounded. Oh, typical humans. Scrutinizing the seahorses and writing it all down rather than taking down their oil rigs. 

“Can I get back to it? I need all the observation hours I can get.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, whatever.” Indrid paused as the human got the piece of black plastic back into his mouth. “Do you mind if I watch with you for a while?”

“No, that’s fine.” The human adjusted something on his suit and sank down again. Indrid followed him. The human situated himself in the same place he’d been sitting before. For Indrid’s benefit, he pointed out the seahorses he was watching: there were two of them, just a few centimeters long, bright pink and knobbly to blend in perfectly with the coral they were clinging to. 

Finally the sun started setting, and the human swam (so slowly, even with his long artificial fins) back to his boat. Indrid followed, easily swimming corkscrews around him. The human hauled himself up onto the boat and took off his headgear, revealing wet brown hair. “You got a name?”

“Indrid. And you?”

“I’m Duck. It’s a nickname.”

Indrid shrugged. He had no conception of how humans named themselves. 

“Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but I gotta go eat dinner.”

“Oh,” said Indrid sadly. “Will you be back tomorrow?”

“Yes, but when I’m working I gotta work. Limited time, and all that. But I’m staying at the research center about a mile thataway -” Duck pointed “-and I can be at the beach in two hours if you want to meet there?”

“Yes!” said Indrid. “I’ll be there.”

Duck laughed, a warm, friendly sound. “I look forward to it.”

\--

So mer were real, apparently. 

And Indrid was - well, Indrid was fascinating in a whole different way from the pygmy seahorses. He had silver hair, just long enough to float a little in the water, and a long, powerful tail covered in glittering red scales. 

At first Duck had been terrified. He’d thought he was about to die, whether Indrid intended to kill him or not, but then Indrid had pulled him to the surface so fast his ears popped. Duck thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t been any deeper, it would not have been good to die of decompression sickness because of a well-meaning merman.

He hadn’t told any of his fellow scientists about it. They wouldn’t have believed him. Instead he’d eaten dinner in silence, agonizing about what to wear to meet a mer. And now, with the sky over the dark ocean full of stars and the moon bright enough to see by, he sat cross-legged on the sand, the waves coming up just far enough to splish at his toes. 

He closed his eyes and listened to the waves, and then he was very glad he’d worn his swim trunks and a t shirt he didn’t mind getting wet, because there was a mer in his lap. “You came!” Indrid said delightedly, wrapping his arms around Duck’s neck to keep himself upright. 

“I did,” said Duck. He kept his hands on the sand, much as he wanted to find out what those scales felt like.

“I don’t like being so close to other humans,” Indrid said, looking nervously up at the research station. “There’s a sandbar a few hundred meters out, if you’d like to move there?”

“Uh,” said Duck. When he’d left, the few other scientists stationed here were too occupied with their game of BS to look out the window and blasting Lady Gaga too loudly to overhear anything. “Sure?”

“Oh, I forgot, you don’t have your flippers. I can tow you?”

Duck left his flip flops out of the reach of the tide and waded into the surf. Indrid was floating on his back in the knee-deep water. “Can you get on top of me?” 

So that’s how they were doing this. Duck swung one leg up over Indrid’s tail and gingerly sat down. Indrid guided Duck’s hands to the place just over his hipbones, where his scales ended and smooth skin began. “Hold tight,” he said, and Duck was almost certain in the moonlight that he winked. 

But then Indrid’s powerful tail struck the water, showering them both in seawater, and they were off. Duck clamped his thighs together and hung on, but Indrid swam smoothly across the surface. 

“You should be able to stand up here,” said Indrid finally, and Duck slid off, his feet hitting the cool sand. 

Indrid’s tail wound loosely around one of Duck’s legs, the scales cool and slick against his skin, and no, he was absolutely  _ not  _ going to get turned on from this. The water was dark, and he could see nothing but Indrid. “There aren’t sharks around here, are there?”

“Oh, yes,” said Indrid, and smiled a very sharp-toothed smile. “But I’ll protect you. They don’t mess with me.”

Well, that was hot. “So,” said Duck teasingly. “Now you’ve got me away from shore and at your mercy, what are you going to do with me?” Fuck, that’d come out hornier than he’d intended it. 

Indrid’s fingers switched from stroking Duck’s hair to gripping it. “Oh, you know. As much as you’d let me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love [pygmy seahorses](http://www.sciencefriday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Richard.Smith_Pygmy.Seahorse_01.jpg)... those noot noot motherfuckers....


	10. Centaur

Indrid ducked into Amnesty Lodge and seated himself at a table far away from the bar. “Tomorrow,” he said when the barkeep approached him. 

Barclay raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Indrid nodded. The centaurs came through once a year, in the spring, when the streams were swollen with snowmelt and Indrid had just started being able to go outside with only one sweater on instead of three. They sold the kinds of things you couldn’t normally get in Kepler: rare books, spices, silk, and Indrid’s personal favorite, tea. 

Barclay pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. “You’re sure?”

“I’d be a poor fortune-teller if I wasn’t. And I’m sure Joseph is looking forward to seeing you as much as you are to seeing him.” Joseph was the only centaur Indrid had ever met who wore a shirt. He’d gotten Barclay to help him get just the top part of a suit tailored a few years back, and Indrid had his suspicions about the circumstances in which that top had come off again.

“Look, it’s not just him, I’m almost out of cumin.” Barclay lowered his voice. “And how can you know that? I mean, what if it’s a girl in every port kind of situation?”

“For that to work out, just numerically, you’d also have to have a merchant in every caravan. And I’m fairly certain you don’t.”

Barclay grumbled. “True.”

Indrid took a deep breath. “I’m planning to ask Duck if he’ll take me with him.”

Barclay looked up. “You  _ what?” _

“What’s keeping me here? You’re my only real friend, and no offense, but...”

“I get it. I suppose you can do your job anywhere. Hoping he’ll let you ride on his back?”

“Maybe.” Indrid had long legs for a human, sure, but he wasn’t particularly athletic, and he highly doubted he’d be able to keep up with a herd of centaurs. “But it's not his back I’d prefer.”

\--

Tea came in blocks in those days, of which Indrid’s favorite was the [donut-shaped rounds of fermented pu-erh](https://iwp.uiowa.edu/silkroutes/tuocha-pu-er-camel-s-breath-tea) _._ Most of the tea was carried in bags, but the pu-erh was strung on a rope and carried against the horse’s skin, and there was something special about tea that a hot centaur had sweated on for a thousand miles. Indrid rationed it carefully throughout the year, and whenever he drank it (with plenty of milk and sugar, so sue him) he thought of Duck. 

Not that he needed tea to think about Duck. Duck was - well, he was more than the sum of his parts. Yes, he was good-looking, and yes he had strong arms and a soft chest, but none of that was enough to explain how he set Indrid’s blood on fire, the fact that for  _ years  _ now they’d spent every moment of Duck’s time in Kepler together.

And now he was back, unloading his wares with the other centaurs in the town square. Indrid hurried up to him. “Duck!”

“Hey, Indrid.” There were streaks of gray in his brown hair, and his smile looked exhausted. “What can I do you for?”

“How much are you willing to sell me?”

“I brought extra this year, just for you.” He reached down to the rope of blocks strung over his back. “Two bricks enough?”

“...three?”

Duck laughed, and handed them over. Indrid cradled the precious cargo to his chest - he should have brought a bag. “How much do I owe you?” The prices changed every year, depending on the weather in the fields where the tea was grown. 

Duck scratched at the back of the neck. “I was actually wondering if I could trade you.”

“For what?”

“Telling my fortune?”

Indrid’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh! Oh, yes, of course. I, uh, I normally do readings in my home, but it’s a bit of a walk from here.”

“Want a ride?”

“Really?”

“Course. Hop on.” Duck knelt, and took Indrid’s hand to help him swing up onto his back. “And hold tight.”

Indrid wrapped his arms around Duck’s chest, and almost died of happiness. It was one thing for Duck to carry him, another thing entirely for him to do it in front of every other centaur in his herd.

“I assume you haven’t moved since the last time I was here?” Duck trotted towards the edge of town. 

“Nope.” Indrid lived in a strange, narrow house outside of town, and Duck found his way there easily and set Indrid down on the doorstep. The ceilings were high enough for a centaur to stand comfortably, too. He’d been a little worried about the doorway, but Duck got inside fine. 

The main room was a mess. Indrid had turned it upside down that morning looking for his favorite sweater to wear for Duck’s arrival, and now he swept objects off the round table he used for his fortune-telling, and put down the filmy tablecloth. “What would you like? Cards? Crystal ball?” He hoped Duck would pick the cards, because his crystal ball was currently covered in smudge marks. 

“Whichever you prefer,” said Duck. 

Indrid located his tarot deck and shuffled it deftly. Being a fraudulent psychic required social skills he sorely lacked. Being a  _ real  _ psychic, however… that he could do. 

The first card he put down was the tower, upright. He’d made this deck himself, and the card depicted the steeple of the church in town in watercolor. 

The hermit, reversed. 

The hierophant, reversed. 

The fool, upright. 

The lovers, upright. This card depicted a centaur and a man, and Indrid dearly hoped that Duck wouldn’t look too closely at it. 

The cards guided his tongue. “You are facing a difficult decision, considering taking a risk in search of a reward. The position of the hierophant suggests to me that you would do well to take that risk. And -” Indrid looked up at Duck’s face. “The hermit reversed suggests settling down and staying put, but that doesn’t make sense at all.”

The sound of hooves against the floor meant that centaur fidgeting wasn’t subtle, but Indrid couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

“Was that alright?”

“Yes,” said Duck. “Thank you.” He smiled. “A future well worth three blocks of tea.”

\--

The next morning Indrid answered the door with a duffel bag slung around his neck. Duck was standing there with his mouth already open, but Indrid cut in. “Take me with you,” he said. “I’m all packed. I promise I won’t be a bother, I can make money telling fortunes, I just want to -”

“I was about to ask if I could stay here.”

“Oh. But, but, why?”

“Walking all day every day hauling shit around kind of blows. And I’m getting old. And Kepler is such a beautiful town, so I was wondering if I could stay with you. For just a couple of days, until I can get my own place.”

“Stay forever,” said Indrid.

“What? Oh, sure, if you’re leaving, we may as well trade - I’ll introduce you to the others, you can have all my stuff - life on the road may well suit you better than it suited me.”

“No, I mean.” Indrid clenched his fists, summoning whatever courage he could muster. “I want you. I wanted to leave so I could stay with you.”

“Oh,” said Duck. “Really? And when you say you want me, you mean…”

“Yes.”

“Thank God you’re tall for a human,” Duck said, and kissed him. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i may or may not end up continuing any of these, feel free to hit me up on tumblr @bellafarallones!


End file.
